


Friends

by winterkill



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Dandelion asks the right questions, F/M, Fluff, Geralt regrets his life choices, Humor, and Ciri, and Philippa, and gets dragged by Yennefer, full of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-18 23:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22034866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterkill/pseuds/winterkill
Summary: Dandelion places the wine glass on the table, trading it for a leather-bound journal. "Tell me, Geralt, after your storied career as a witcher, famed throughout the land, what is your greatest regret?"Geralt closes his eyes and sighs. "Once, I wrote Yennefer a letter."
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 41
Kudos: 380





	Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in book/game canon, but I don't think any show only viewers would be terribly confused. It assumes the player romanced Yennefer (obviously), and that Ciri becomes a witcher.
> 
> If you haven't read the books, Geralt writes Yennefer a letter, asking for help with Ciri's magic abilities, and addresses her as "Dear Friend." Her response is suitably sarcastic.

Witchers don't retire.

Unless death equals retirement; in that case, witchers _do_ retire, but it's swift, decisive, and leaves little time for enjoying the spoils or fruits of one's effort.

Which is why Geralt finds it very peculiar indeed to sit on the veranda, _his_ veranda, in Toussaint doing absolutely _nothing_. The fruits of his labor are _literal_ fruits--the grapes in the red wine he's currently swirling around in his glass were grown in his own vineyard.

He won't get rich from selling wine, especially given that most of his guests drink the inventory. Dandelion is doing so now, wine glass in one hand and a quill perched in the other.

"Anna Henrietta will have your head if she catches you here." Geralt pauses, "Not that I care."

Dandelion sips the wine, "You love me. All your fame and renown are due to _me._ "

"...And _that's_ why I can't get any peace."

He places the wine glass on the table, trading it for a leather-bound journal. "Tell me, Geralt, after your storied career as a witcher, famed throughout the land, what is your greatest regret?"

Geralt drinks more wine and grunts, "Meeting you, hands down."

" _Please_ , don't lie."

"I'm not. Is this a fucking interview?"

"I'm memorializing you through the written world, Geralt. You should be grateful; a century from now people will remember your deeds."

"...I'm not sure I want to be remembered the way you'll write it." That he saved maidens, or was a great lover, or that he was only successful because some _pompous_ bard--

"You wound me." Dandelion sounds like he's going to pick up his lute and pen a mournful ballad about how mean Geralt of Rivia is.

" _Fine,"_ Geralt downs the rest of his glass. "It's about Yennefer."

"Ah, a fine regret--"

"She'll hear you."

"Good."

"I don't mean meeting her, you ass," Geralt closes his eyes and sighs. "Once, I wrote Yennefer a letter."

* * *

Geralt doesn't _need_ much sleep, but he likes it. A bed is a welcome reprieve after endless nights spent sleeping on the ground, or in the saddle atop Roach. Geralt _especially_ enjoys a comfortable bed in the boneless, defenseless moment after sex. 

He remembers the time spent with Yennefer at her home in Vengerberg. Better to close his eyes with his head on a pillow than some ridiculous place, like floating in the air, or atop a unicorn. Not that any of those venues were bad; in fact, just the opposite--

"Geralt."

He opens his eyes; the room has darkened, but that matters little to either of them. Yennefer is watching him, head resting on her bent arm. Geralt's night vision is such that he doesn't need to imagine the shape of her beneath the thin sheet.

Their conversation lead to something the entire inn surely heard.

"Yen?"

She might berate him again, which Geralt can weather; it means she's speaking to him.

"That _letter_."

"Must we talk about this?"

Yennefer chuckles and places a hand on his bare chest, fingertip tracing over the raised ridge of a scar. "No."

"I didn't know how to address you," he pauses, "given our...history."

"You wished on a djinn and bound our destinies; does that make us _friends?"_

"I didn't want to make you angry."

Yennefer makes a _hmmm_ and is silent for a moment, "Do _friends_ engage in the sort of activities we engaged in?"

Geralt is feeling quite petulant when he answers, "Some might."

Her laugh isn't the kind that would be wise for Geralt to laugh along with. Yennefer trails her hand down his chest. 

"Friends." She keeps her hand going, down over his stomach. " _Best_ friends. We must be quite close, based on my memories."

"The _closest_ ," Geralt answers when Yennefer's hand reaches the sheet at his waist. She rests it there, as though there's no innuendo behind it. "Yen, I didn't mean--"

"It made me _very_ angry."

"I gathered that from your response."

"I wasn't too oblique?"

Geralt has to chuckle at that, "You've been many things, but oblique isn't one of them."

Yennefer’s intent is clear; Geralt's mind knows it, and the rest of his body follows along. She slides her hand under the sheet and touches him with with a finesse that Geralt could never replicate. 

"That's quite a reaction for a _friend_ ," Yennefer comments in that calm way that makes Geralt want to reverse their positions and push her into the bed. She'll let him, but it will start a game Geralt isn't sure he can win.

He _missed_ this--Yennefer and her ability to make him feel like he's dying and soaring. It's a good thing Yennefer can pry into his mind because Geralt can never find the words to tell her that being with her feels like it shakes the firmament, like it remakes the earth and drags the moon from the sky.

Maybe it's just Yennefer, or maybe it's the one pleasant side effect of the Trial of the Grasses, but it hasn't been a quarter of an hour, and Geralt wants her again. It's _not_ an impotent want.

And he's close, _so_ close, when Yennefer pulls back, smiles sweetly, and says, "You know, I'm not sure this is appropriate behavior for a _friend_."

“...Damnit.”

* * *

Geralt spent so long thinking it'd be in Ciri’s best interest to _not_ be with him. Now that she _is_ under his care, he intends to keep an eye on her. Which is why he's _not_ exactly thrilled that Ciri appears to be deep in conversation with Philippa Eilhart. Thanedd is _filled_ with sorceresses, and Yennefer intends for Ciri to study at Aretuza, so he'll just have to get used to Ciri rubbing elbows with people he wouldn't trust as far as he could throw them. Keeping her at Kaer Morhen might've been preferable, but there's little else to teach her there.

Yennefer, at his elbow, whispers, "I wouldn't suggest trusting Philippa."

"Is there _anyone_ here you'd suggest trusting?'

She chuckles, "A select few, under the right conditions."

" _Great_."

They're too far away for Geralt to make out their conversation. Yennefer surely could, if she cared to. Ciri doesn't _look_ like she's struggling.

"The girl has overcome worse than a conversation with Philippa," Yennefer whispers. 

Did she read his thoughts or just assume he was watching Ciri for signs of discomfort?

"I wasn't reading your thoughts," Yennefer whispers again.

Geralt can't think of a pithy reply, which is just as well because Philippa, Ciri in tow, is headed their way.

Philippa's expression is entirely an appraisal; she looks Yennefer up and down, then does the same with him. Her dress is as risque as any of the other sorceresses in attendance, although Philippa doesn't look like she's trying to drag him into a dark corner and have her way with him.

"I was just talking to young Cirilla," Philippa tells them.

Geralt would happily grunt a reply, take Ciri by the arm, and drag her away. Thankfully, Yennefer plays the game better than he does.

"She was telling me about Aretuza," Ciri says.

Yennefer tightens her fingers around Geralt's arm, "I'm certain Philippa had much to say."

Philippa smiles, "In return, Cirilla was telling me a story about your dramatic reunion."

Yennefer smiles in return, "Was she?"

Ciri is smiling now, too, and Geralt is definitely not a fan of the three of them having such eerily similar expressions. It certainly doesn't bode anything well for him.

"I was _certain_ the story would be filled with passion, but Ciri says otherwise."

Philippa's words make Geralt's fight-or-flight instincts kick in, and flight is the verdict his mind reaches.

"The two of you sounded very _close_ last night," Ciri shrugs, "but I told her you were just _friends_."

Philippa starts laughing.

" _The best_ of friends," Yennefer holds onto his arm even tighter, "Right, Geralt?" 

"As close as can be," Geralt grumbles.

* * *

Once, long ago, before the Law of Surprise, before wishing on a djinn, Geralt would’ve told _anyone_ who believed in destiny that they were a fucking idiot. Until he was proven wrong by a series of his own choices.

He hasn’t seen Yennefer in two years, but she stood before him on the dock as Bran Tuirseach’s body was sent into the sea, and it was like no time had passed at all. Yennefer still smelled of lilacs and gooseberries, a scent that drove him as mad as the first time he smelt it.

Only her scolding, and some respect for Skellige’s funeral traditions, keep Geralt from taking her by the hand and knocking down the door of the first beach cottage he sees. A bed would be a luxury; he’s settle for any flat surface--a table, a rug, against a wall.

Yennefer read his mind, so she knows every fantasy he’s harbored for the last two years and beyond. Geralt can’t hide, even if he wanted to, so he lays his desires out for her, to let Yennefer pick from them, like she might pick from her wardrobe. Geralt isn’t as imaginative as she is, but certainly there’s _something_ there to hold her interest.

“I like what I see,” Yennefer tells him.

He can’t help but agree when it’s Yennefer he’s looking at. When they’re sharing a space, Yennefer is his sole focus; when she reads his mind, she’ll find only herself in it.

Geralt’s wish drags them back together; against time, distance, and death, Yennefer and he always find each other. At his most self-pitying, Geralt wonders if the wish is the only thing them together. Aside from the time in Vengerberg, they’ve only existed in spare moments and scraps of time. They’re destined to meet, and part, and meet again. 

Can it _keep_ , though, or is it just the wish?

“You’re thinking about the unicorn,” Yennefer tells him _after_. 

They’ll be missed at the wake soon enough, but Geralt is in no rush to return when Yennefer is lying next to him, clad in only her underwear. A funeral can’t compare, etiquette be damned.

“I’m in awe that you found another one,” Geralt admits.

“Besides,” Yennefer sits up, crawls to him in a way the sends all his blood rushing south, _again_ , “It holds pleasant memories.” 

“It holds...memories.” Geralt has mixed feelings--Yennefer was _good_ , but the position was awkward, and the fur on the stupid fucking thing _chafed._ Her fixation on its continued inclusion was both perplexing and amusing.

“...If the damn thing makes you happy.”

Either way, Geralt never refuses her.

Yennefer reaches him, presses her bare torso against his and whispers into his ear, “It _does_ , and it’s good to have something from _before_.”

“Before?”

That could mean a dozen things--before they spent years apart, before the Wild Hunt and Geralt losing his memories, before Ciri.

She chuckles, breath warm against his ear, “From before we were _friends_.”

* * *

Time hasn’t improved Geralt’s opinion of Philippa. Without her eyes, she can’t give him that fucking _look_ , but that’s a small comfort when she can still speak. She was infinitely more tolerable as an owl. Philippa creates paths and moves obstacles. Geralt needs Philippa's magic to navigate the cave, so he will suffer her commentary. He holds the torch aloft, his eyesight not penetrating the darkness. 

Philippa says, "I've noticed the tension between you and Yennefer."

Telling her there isn't room for a fivesome doesn't dissuade her. Philippa only laughs, and says a few moments later, "I really _am_ only thinking of Ciri."

"...And how you can use her." Geralt hasn't forgotten Philippa's plan to marry Ciri off to Tankred Thyssen.

"And how she can fully realize her potential."

Geralt grunts, "However you want to spin it."

There's another patch of silence; he's happy for it to persist for the remainder of the venture. 

"Isn't it the same for you and Yennefer?"

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't you just seeing what you want to see in one another?"

"No," Geralt answers honestly. "There's no room to see anything but her." Yennefer had shown him sides of her that were not _at all_ flattering; she had been petty and spiteful as often as he had been sullen and jealous.

Philippa outright _scoffs_ , "You think you know her? _I've_ known Yennefer of Vengerberg longer than you have."

"And I've known her more intimately."

"If you think Yennefer doesn't have machinations that you aren't privy to, you're more naive that I realized."

"Yen has plenty of secrets.”

"Perhaps _she_ has a plan for Ciri."

It's Philippa's nature to be distrustful, and maybe Geralt should take a page from that book; Yennefer conspiring wouldn't be unprecedented. He remembers sitting next to Yennefer on the ship in Skellige, looking at her for the first time free of the djinn's wish and feeling _exactly_ the same.

The wish brought them together, but it didn't _keep_ them together.

"She'll tell me what I need to know when I need to know it."

"Why are you so sure?"

No answer will satisfy Philippa, so Geralt decides to say the thing she'll find the most perplexing. He's smiling, although he's not sure Philippa can tell, when he says, "Well, it comes from the fact that we're really good _friends_."

* * *

Yennefer comes to him in Toussaint, stays for an entire week, and hasn’t mentioned leaving. Geralt doesn’t ask because surely Yennefer knows the thought has crossed his mind--she’s never been shy about cracking his head open and peering in. 

They haven’t spent this many consecutive days together since Vengerberg; it’s uncommonly peaceful--drinking wine, lounging around, making love. Neither of them have any idea of what to do with calmness, but they’re sure as hell _trying_.

“I think I’m retiring,” Geralt tells her one morning, staring at the ceiling above his bed--no, _their_ bed?

“I know,” Yennefer answers, “And it could be ours.”

“You’re staying?”

“I wondered when you’d ask that aloud.”

Yennefer leans in and kisses him, a gesture that would look sweet to anyone who didn't know Yennefer. She touches Geralt's cheek with her fingertips, and he leans in.

Geralt leans into anything Yennefer offers him; it's his greatest weakness, and her best quality.

"Yen," he sighs, lowering his defenses like the utter fool that he is. She smells like her usual lilac and gooseberries; will that scent ever _not_ be intoxicating to him? He touches her hair, wondering if bringing it closer, _her_ closer, will make the scent more potent. Whenever she leaves, it's the first thing it he misses. Maybe he won’t need to miss it again, or at least be confident in a timely return.

"Geralt," she answers, "I need you."

He can't think of anything Yennefer needs or wants that she couldn't provide for herself. He likes the idea, though, of Yennefer of Vengerberg needing him. Geralt needs her, like air and water and a dozen emotions he tried for so long to stuff in a box.

"Anything." His voice has a hoarse quality that only Yennefer inspires.

Yennefer kisses him, one cheek and then the other, and smiles at him. Her lilac eyes are filled with mischief, and Geralt wonders if he just agreed to something _horrible_ , like going through a series of portals, or having sex on the side of a cliff in Skellige.

"There’s a party," Yennefer says, "with dancing."

" _Yen_."

"You already agreed," she chimes, "It’s so quiet here, and we have _all_ this free time, so we should do things.”

“I thought we were using the time quite nicely.”

“I've already picked out your clothes."

“You want to truss me up like a game hen," he replies gruffly, “Make me wear a fucking doublet.”

Her smile grows.

"Does this involve a portal?"

She leans down and kisses him again. Geralt sort of loathes how he's already telling her _yes_ in his head; Yennefer knows it, too. 

"It's what a good _,_ dear _friend_ would do."

* * *

Ciri still has Vesemir's wolf medallion around her neck.

Geralt didn't choose it for himself, and he wouldn't wish the life of a witcher on anyone. It robbed him of choice, but it's been so long that he can't imagine what else he might've dreamed of doing. The desire for something else is long gone to him.

There's two swords on Ciri's back--one silver and one steel.

"How do I look?"

"Better than Geralt," Yennefer puts both hands on her shoulders and looks at her. "And no worse than last time you visited."

"A low bar," he grumbles. Geralt looks like he's been, well, riding across the land slaying monsters for nearly a century.

The three of them talk, late into the night, until Geralt, despite his considerable alcohol tolerance, is drunk enough that trying on some of Yennefer's dresses starts to seem like a good idea.

"Let's _not_ repeat that," Yennefer grabs his arm.

"I'd _love_ to see it," Ciri says, just a bit slurred before wrapping an arm around each of them.

"It was _quite_ a sight."

Ciri tells them about contracts she's taken out, remembers the taxonomy and lore and blade oils and strategies. The months apart pour out of her, one story after another.

"People think I'm _lying_ ," she smacks her mug against the table, "but _then_ I kill whatever fucking thing they're complaining about."

“Vesemir would be proud of you,” Geralt tells her.

Yennefer looks proud, too; her praise its subtle, but Geralt knows the look of it in her lilac eyes. She told him, once, that she had nothing to show for all her efforts, nothing to pass on and no one to pass it on to. Watching her talk with Ciri, Geralt hopes she sees that she _has_ passed on so much. That a legacy doesn’t have to be born from her to be _hers_.

Yennefer leans in and whispers, “I see _you_ in her, too.”

“...Only her bad habits.”

Ciri interrupts them, asking, “Did you take my suggestion about not leaving the house for a week?”

Yennefer raises her eyebrows _just_ a fraction, “That suggestion was _Ciri’s_ idea, Geralt? I thought you were being romantic after being apart for so long. All those fantasies, each one filthier than the last."

“...I thought it was a good idea.”

“It was,” Ciri agrees, “Because the two of you work _everything_ out through sex. After a week alone with no distractions, you’ll never fight again.”

“Yen and I took your suggestion,” Geralt glances at Yennefer, “for the _entire_ week.”

It was one _hell_ of a week, the likes of which Geralt hadn’t experienced since all those years ago in Vengerberg. There’s an expression in Toussaint that Geralt can't recall that compares sex and death. Vesemir once told him that no witcher dies in their bed, but Geralt thought he might be the first witcher to try. The sheer pleasure of it made up for the fact that Yennefer thanked him for being such a generous friend after every second or third bout. 

“I _think_ ,” Yennefer glances at Geralt, smiling, “that even some of the further away neighbors heard what good _friends_ we are.”

“Damnit, Yen, can’t you let that go?”

She laughs until she’s nearly in tears, and Ciri joins in, “Not when you make it so easy, no.”

* * *

Dandelion scribbled furiously with his quill the entire time Geralt spoke. By the time he pauses, Dandelion is grinning maniacally, and maybe, _maybe_ Geralt gave him way, way too much information. A glance at the parchment indicates it’s nearly full.

He should’ve just said something banal, like not going to Cintra and fetching Ciri earlier. It _was_ a regret, and would’ve required much less personal embarrassment to explain.

“What the fuck is it?” Geralt growls when Dandelion won’t stop smiling at him.

“You’re _terrible_ with women. I’ve lied _so_ many times in my songs.”

Geralt doesn’t want to hear that from Dandelion; at least he didn’t make a habit of climbing down from second-story windows with his ass hanging out.

“Fuck you.”

“I have a new sympathy for Yennefer, which I didn’t think was possible. _Dear Friend._ Really, Geralt?”

He shouldn’t have to put up with this abuse in his own home. “Maybe I _should_ let Anna Henreitta know you’re in Toussaint.” Let her mete out whatever punishment Dandelion is to face.

“You wouldn’t _dare_.”

“I think he might,” a voice from the stairs interjects, “You’ve quite let him embarrass himself.” Yennefer descends, and the smell of lilac and gooseberries fills the room.

“You asked,” Geralt grumbles, “so I answered.”

“And it went better than I could’ve ever dreamed,” Dandelion says. “I can make this into an entire chapter.”

Yennefer smiles, placing a hand on Geralt’s shoulder, “As you’ve learned, Geralt is always there for his friends.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are love! You can find me on tumblr @kurikaesu-haru


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